Cous cous. grandchildren, heron

Making a cous cous. The ingredients for the sauce, grow in complexity as the taste adjusts to what you want. They include: ground, mixed tropical peppercorns; preserved lemons; pickled sweet peppers; dried apricots; finely chopped ruby chard; sliced, baby courgettes; corriander. It is to be eaten with roast chicken.

Teenage grandchildren coming to lunch on their way to France. Taller than last time, talkative, hungry, they seem to be intriguing connections with all possible tenses.

I read in a review of a new book, Red Weather by Ruth Padel, a quotation from which, among other things, makes me want to read it: "...a heron lands with a flapping sound like someone hanging out the washing."

Chinese box, Rastafarian, Ashdown Forest

An old and beautiful, Chinese laquered box - it's red and without ornamentation- to contain
the various electronic clutter, which remotely controls the tv etc.

"She's decided she's going to become a Rastafarian. She's researched everything thoroughly. She thinks it's a good thing. ..She's 29... I can't wait to see her dreadlocks". Overheard in the Pantiles.

From the junction of Little Mount Sion and Warwick Park you can see, between a gap in the houses, a distant view of Ashdown Forest - bluey-grey heathland, a contrast with the sunlit town and green common around us.

Chalybeate, cream cakes, dragonfly

An Italian woman with five or six 10 year old boys at the spring in the Pantiles. She translates the account of the spring's discovery by Lord North in 1606 into Italian. They are not listening.
Then she photgraphs one with the inscription beside him.

An elderly lady wearing a sun visor on the bench outside the church in the High Street. She is eating cream cakes out of a paper bag with such evident enjoyment that it makes you hungry to watch her.

A drangonfly darting to and fro in Mount Sion.

Romeo and Julieta,Tulip tree, J-P Sartre

Slowly smoking one of the Romeo and Julieta No 2 cigars, which Heidi brought back for me from Gibralter last month.

Waking, as I always do, to the sight of the tulip tree in the middle distance in the centre of the bedroom window. It is an old tree and has attained a considerable height. In the centre of the tree, there is a space among the leaves where you can see how the trunk has forked into three branches. This skewed fork pattern has engraved itself on my mind in summer, and in winter, when the leaves are gone; it has become a symbol of morning time.

When I was young lots of people were talking about Jean-Paul Sartre, though not as many, I suspect, had read him. Now that he is out of fashion, I am reading Nausea, his first novel, very slowly because in French. It confronts the existence, which we all take for granted, as though every moment was the first moment and the last moment. Could be exhausting if you took it too seriously, but more fun than I expected.

Imaginary sun, crocodile, new book

Watching people pass outside the Pizza Express at the bottom of the High Street. An acquaintance on his way past asks: "Are you pretending the sun's out?" The sun was out, but above the cloud cover.

A crocodile of Japanese school children (perhaps 30 of them) is perfectly formed. Students walk at an even pace, two by two. There is a teacher in front and one behind. When the teacher in front stops at the curb, the whole lines stops, every pair at the same time.

A new book from The Folio Society - The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. How beautiful it looks, feels and smells! I used to think such luxuries uneccessary, and was content with paper backs. But such a volume, with its Art Nouveau cover and illustrations, adds to the pleasure of reading.

Sweetpeas, Squirrel, Lemon

After a wet night, cutting sweetpeas on which there are still raindrops.

In the Grove a spaniel races after a squirrel. The squirrel runs up the nearest tree. The spaniel pretends it was never interested in the squirrel and hares off in another direction.

Two lemon flavours in our little garden - lemon grass and lemon balm. In the kitchen, meanwhile, a lemon is a lemon is a lemon.

Warm wind, wet earth, blogging

This is the sort of wind that is celebrated in the 14th Century poem supposed to have been written by a homesick English soldier in France:
" Western wind when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain.
Christ that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!"


Checking the soil to see if the rain has gone deep enough to reach the roots of plants.

Talking to Andre at the video shop about the virtues of blogging.

Pigeons, Hollandaise, Rabbit's fart

Very early in the morning the view from the bathroom window of back gardens and our neighbour's patio is peaceful and there is a scent of flowers and other growing things. Suddenly a clatter of wings. A pigeon. Then another. Finally three pigeons perch together on the fence. They nod and tilt their heads, the way birds do working their beady eyes, as they search for food or look out for enemies.

Making Hollandaise sauce - a lithe amalgm of egg yolks and butter scented with lemon.

The CassellsFrench dictionary, which I keep upstairs, is old fashioned and in many other ways less than satisfactory, but it often provides pleasure. I don't know if the expression is, or ever was in common use, but I love "ce ne vaut pas un pet lapin" - it's not worth a rabbit's fart -which it gives as an example in its definition of "pet".

Woods, Crossing the Road, Notebooks

Walking down Little Mount Sion and seeing the steep, wooded slopes of the Common rising above the rooftops of the High Street.

Two tough old ladies crossing the High Street, where it bends sharply towards the London Road. Each has an identical, aluminium walking stick in one hand and each raises her free hand to acknowledge the traffic, which stops for them.

The arrival by post of two Moleskine pocket notebooks, the sort which has no constraining rules so that you can draw as well as write in them.

Old and Young, Bumble Bee, Straight and Curled

In Calverley Park, where there used to be tennis courts, there is a croquet club adjoining a court where basket ball is played. There were players on both engaged in their respective sports. On the croquet lawn, there was no one under the age of sixty ; on the basket ball court, no one over the age of twenty.

Among this year's nasturtiums, a new variety called Moonlight. In the evening light a bumble bee in search of pollen, ignored all the other flowers and chose Moonlight. It buried itself headfirst in each corolla until only the end of its abdomen, quivering a little with its exertions, was visible. It then moved on to the next until it had tackled all the Moonlight flowers.

In the past I have tried to grow sweetpeas according to the book, ie prune surplus shoots and tendrils and tie each stalk to a stake. You are supposed to get single blooms at the end of long stems. Fine for garden shows, but the uniformity is tedious, like fruit of the same size in supermarkets. This year, the sweet peas curl and twist and, arranged in a vase, are far more interesting.

Laziness, First Tomato, Three Beautiful Things

I read in La Nausee : "It is through idleness , I suppose, that day after day the world continues to look like itself".


The tomato plants have recovered after looking decidedly poorly following two days of neglect over the hot weekend. And today came the first ripe fruit.

Seeing The Best of Now mentioned by Clare Grant in her Three Beautiful Things - its source and inspiration. She says that as we live in the same town we may pass each other without realising it. Not to be deliberately mysterious I have managed to upload this photo(the smallest I could manage), to make chance identification easier should we pass in the street.

Spa Water, Serrano Ham, Baby Spinnach

Watching a frail old lady tourist manfully sampling Tunbridge Wells' brownish spa water.

Buying serrano ham - the Spanish, cured, raw ham; and comparing it, as one always does, with the usually inferior Parma ham.

Picking baby spinnach leaves and planning a salad with pancetta and poached eggs.

Balloon, Swifts, Haddock

Sitting outside Zizzi's in the evening, I see a yellow, hot-air balloon drift slowly above the High Street and dissappear over the rooftops in the direction of The Common.

Later, a bunch of swifts chasing and screaming almost as high as the balloon, come into view for a few seconds, directly overhead in the strip of sky between the buildings.

I read in the New Scientist about a new variety of jelly fish which was discovered by a man called called Stephen Haddock, who is a researcher at the Monterey Aquarium Research Institute.

Strawberry, Sound of a Hose, Old Wine

One wild strawberry has fruited outside our basement window. Plants have been there for at least 20 years, and have received no special attention, yet still survive.

Walking down the hill, I heard the sound of water coming out of a hose pipe. A woman in her garden was watering the blue hydranga, which remains blue while its near neighbour stays pink

Sharing a a bottle of 1989 Clerc Millon, which has been waiting to be drunk for 15 years, and was worth waiting for.

Lime Flower Tea, Lime Basil, Creme Caramel

As I had recommended lime flower tea, I thought I should buy some myself and drink it, which I did with pleasure. It was the memory of madeleine cakes dunked in a tisane made from lime flowers that got Marcel Proust started in A La Recherche du Temps Perdu.

Lime Basil is now in leaf. I had never grown it before. It tastes as it sounds - an aromatic mix of sweet basil and lime - the citrus this time.

Preparing creme caramel to be eaten with peaches poached in white wine.

Italian Market, Unexplained Matter, Dove

Sitting outside Guiuseppi's and greeting people we know as they pass on their way round the Italian market in the Pantiles.

Talking about mysterious happenings and linking them to the 96 per cent of matter in the Universe which physicists have not yet accounted for.

Watching a dove on a chimney pot catching the late rays of the evening sun.

Derivations, Privet, Lion

Looking up words. I come across the French phrase a la derive (sorry no accents), meaning adrift. I find it is derived or has come adrift, as you would expect, from the French deriver, which means more or less what it does in English.

Seeing a privet tree adorned with the white flowers which sometimes sneak up in my privet hedge when the sheers have missed them.

A fierce, papier mache lion, black and orange, and about four foot long, in the window of a house, which I pass on my way home.

Pottering, Courgette Flowers, Basil

Pottering first things in the morning - a drop of water for a plant that looks in need, an item returned to its place, a neglected clock wound up, a yeast dough starter fed with flour and a little warm water.

Courgette flowers: you can lightly fry them until they go limp, plunge them into batter and deep fry them for a minute or two until the batter is golden brown, or shred them raw and strew them over a salad.

Cutting sweet basil when it has reached several inches in height, and enjoying the smell before anything else.

Pied Wagtail, Onions, Outdoor Cooking

A pied wagtail's swooping flight in Calverley Park. If I could fly that's how I'd fly.

Baby onions caramelised and preserved in balsamic vinegar.

Cooking a meal in the garden as it begins to get dark.

Star, Agapanthus, Nasturtiums

As it gets dark and we talk and drink, watching a star appear over the roof of the house opposite and then sink behind the roof.

The buds of Agapathus like pale, green envelopes promising surprises.

The wilderness of nasturtiums which appears against the fence every year, self-seeded from the previous year. The colours range from crimson through orange to pale yellow. Some blooms are yellow streaked with orange.